


restoration

by wapiti



Series: aftermath [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Multi, Trans Taako (The Adventure Zone), but lup is also still trans, merle magnus and lup are mentioned and maybe some others i already dont remember LOL, spoilers for the entire balance arc like if u havent finished all of balance Dont touch this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wapiti/pseuds/wapiti
Summary: “If…” Kravitz began, and Taako turned back to the stove, still listening, “If you… could get back what you lost in Wonderland… would you?"Lucretia tries to mend some things that have been broken because of her.





	restoration

**Author's Note:**

> i already typed notes for this once and fucked up and deleted them so i forgot what i wanted to say mostly !
> 
> 1) i interpreted lup and taako as semi-identical twins so they still look almost exactly the same but lup is dmab and taako is dfab. theyre both trans, because i saw someone else do a trans taako and that is absolutely my shit. always more trans characters  
> 2) this seemed like something lucretia might try to do to get better with her friends and make up for some of the damage they caused by creating this relic in the first place but if things seem ooc or anything feel free to leave me a comment and i will use the feedback to Improve because i wanna do a series of these
> 
> also typos!!! please tell me!!! i am dyslexic and i miss them a lot. thanks and hope u like it . ..

It had been almost two years since the Hunger had disappeared.

 

Even without the full memories of their century aboard the starblaster and travelling through planes and worlds together, there had been a sense of looming darkness. It had been a feeling like the air was too still, like a danger you could feel was lurking behind you, just out of sight. It was something no one had talked about, a constant tug they could all feel at the edge of their conscious that kept them awake and restless at night, feeling like they should be  _ doing _ something about it, but they didn’t know what it was. 

When things started to move at supersonic speeds and the memories returned like the opening of a floodgate, everything had been resolved within hours. It felt like years, and it felt like only seconds. After that, life had become very uneventful very abruptly, and it took an understandable amount of time to get used to. Warm and sunny days seemed brighter now, and even the stormy days felt a little less dark and gloomy. Everything ran smoothly, for the most part. The Bureau made efforts to promote peace in a peaceful way, and the heroes of those battles against the hunger all had lives made for themselves. They had all had a while to settle in, now, but it had been quite the adjustment, and still was at times.

They visited Lucretia often, most of them. Not just her past crewmates, either. Angus came to her from time to time, she saw Carey and Killian at least a few times a week, and even got to meet little Roswell. She was thankful to be visited by all her friends, but it made keeping aspects of her work a secret that much harder.

Lucretia generally tried not to keep secrets now. She had had enough of that for an entire lifetime. This secret, however, was less of a secret and more of a surprise. 

Even before the the times of peace came, before the hunger had been defeated, she had been working on this plan. As soon as she had left Wonderland, she had considered something like this. When it had been just her and Cam, she had more easily put the thought out of her mind, locking away those memories and opting out of dealing with them altogether. But after Merle, Taako, and Magnus had gone and returned, looking haggard and telling tales of the countless others they had seen beaten and bloodied after having their memories, body parts, and pieces of their souls taken from them, it was nearly all she could think about. People had died in Wonderland every day it had existed. The cruel and unusual punishment inflicted by Edward and Lydia had changed countless people in ways that could not be repaired.

Some things, though, could be mended.

Lucretia had taken full advantage of Taako’s relationship with Kravitz to get on his good side for her own purposes, and it had not been lost on him that friendship was not all she wanted.

“Please promise me that you won't tell Taako, or anyone else. I… I want to surprise them with this, if it works out.” She said these words to him as soon as he confronted her about her sudden and fervent interest in currying favor. She had prepared for the moment.

“I would prefer to know what it is I am promising to withhold before giving the promise, if you don’t mind,” he said, leaning backward in the chair at the far side of Lucretia’s desk.

“I… Taako, I assume… has told you a bit about Wonderland, the area where the animus bell, one of the Grand Relics, was before they returned it.” Lucretia began tentatively, but confidently, keeping eye contact with the reaper.

“He told me a bit, yes. He prefers not to talk about it, and from what I did hear, it’s understandable. It was a place fuelled by suffering, run by two liches. He, Merle, and Magnus all lost… things there, and not just items. Magnus seems to have regained most of it, though, as his lost decade and missing finger were returned to him upon the creation of his new body during that last battle with the Hunger,” he said, shifting slightly. “But he also lost a memory, I know. Taako said Merle lost some of his vision and an eye - though I suppose those could be classified as the same thing - and some items, and Taako himself lost some of his abilities and, obviously, his… looks,” Kravitz said, scowling at his last words, but Lucretia nodded, understanding what he’d meant. 

“I… what I did to them, taking their memories from them, at the time, I thought it was for the best. I care for all of them so much, and I have for so long. I hated seeing them suffer and become closed-off and miserable, hurting because of the knowledge they held of the relics we had created to try to  _ save _ this plane, and I wanted to do something, anything to numb it,” she said, tone progressing from calm to fervent and broken as she continued, and Kravitz gestured to her to stop and calm down. She inhaled deeply, and sighed. “What I did… was wrong, obviously. I felt like I had no one to confide in, and acted rashly to try and stop the damage we had done from going any further. I don’t think I can ever truly make it up to them. I certainly can’t make my mistakes go away, but they all went through a lot for me, especially those three. Wonderland… Wonderland was the toughest one they faced, I think, aside from their first grand relic encounter in Phandalin. They succeeded, but at great personal cost. There were also others, there, countless others who lost things in Wonderland.”

“I am aware. Many souls were collected there.” Kravitz’s voice was neutral. He had gotten used to it, she knew, as the reaper, and she could tell he was mentally rushing ahead of her, so she hurried to explain what she wanted before he made up his mind before she could even clarify.

“I… I would like to appeal to the Raven Queen, if I could, about what Edward and Lydia did to so many people there. I would not ask that lost lives be returned, I know that is a much trickier situation than I could ever hope to get through,” she said, resigned, and Kravitz seemed to open a bit more to her plea after knowing she didn’t plan to ask for something they both already knew he could not give. “But if I can, I’d like to restore some of what was lost to those who made it out. The dead may have died before their due time, but they are at peace now, I can only hope. I want… to ask the Raven Queen if she would be… open to the idea of returning some of what was lost to those who survived. Not just Merle, Magnus, and Taako, but all those who sacrificed things in Wonderland. I can’t say there is no personal motivation in it; I went to Wonderland to try and retrieve the relic myself and lost twenty years of my life, among other things, and I would not be opposed to getting it back, despite already having had a century of extra time,” she admitted, quiet but unashamed. “If she could return even one thing to each of those who survived Wonderland, that would be more than enough for me.”

As Lucretia finished her pitch, Kravitz was silent and thoughtful. The silence lasted a few moments before Kravitz replied, but there was a glint in his eye that made her heart beat just a little harder in her chest.

“I believe that in this situation, she could be understanding. She has no qualms with this sort of thing, as far as I know, but we have… never really faced a situation like this before, as you would probably assume. The living isn’t usually her realm, but I believe she would be willing to further this idea to her fellow gods and goddesses if she can’t do anything about it herself. I was aware for a time, as was she, that odd things were happening in Wonderland. The Raven Queen sees death as a necessary end, but suffering need not be included in that, and Edward and Lydia certainly inflicted more suffering than they underwent themselves.” Kravitz sighed. “The Raven Queen has never said yes to anyone who asked for anything, as far as I know... but being who she is, those inquiries are usually asking for freedom from the astral plane and restored life. I don’t see any reason she would want to refuse you, but… I just, I want you to understand I can’t make any promises, and I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“I understand,” Lucretia said, her hopes already soaring. 

“I’ll see what I can do. Is that all?” Kravitz asked, as if he expected her to want something more. The thought of that made her dizzy.

“That is all,” she said, and with a nod, he stood and exited, leaving her to the silence of her office. 

She sat still for a moment, staring at the closed door he had left through. She spun her chair slowly, and faced the portrait of herself from those few years ago, where she looked nearly half the age she did now. She stared at the wall hanging with longing. To have those years back and be able to spend them with her friends, her companions who had already spanned a century with her, was asking a lot, she knew. But they finally had peace, had a home, and she was desperate for all the time she could get.

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

“Taako,” Kravitz said in a low voice, sitting at the table a few yards from where the elf stood at the counter, cooking something Kravitz had never heard of nor smelled before.

“Hmm?”

Kravitz paused, then, not sure how to phrase his question. He’d asked Taako’s attention before fully thinking through how he would ask what he wanted to ask, and took a moment to think it through in an effort to not come off as rude. Taako turned and gave him a quizzical stare, turning the burner down. “If…” he began, and Taako turned back to the stove, still listening, “If you… could get back what you lost in Wonderland… would you? I mean, would you like to have it back?” He already knew the answer.

Taako was silent. His hands moved without pause, but his posture stiffened, and he didn’t reply for a time, and Kravitz began to worry he’d offended him. “I would,” he said, softly. “I mean, I know what those other clowns lost was worse, and… what people other than us lost was even worse than that,” he responded, still back-to Kravitz. “And I’d like to think that eventually I’d get used to it. I know looks aren’t everything. But I would.”

“If you could only have one thing back, which would you choose?”

“Why are you asking me this?” He questioned, tone slightly acidic, turning to scowl at Kravitz. The reaper, properly guilted, ducked his head and averted his eyes, question forgotten. He knew it was a horrible memory, the time in Wonderland, and he knew Taako in particular was still sensitive to what he had lost. Vitality and dexterity could be returned over time, and they had, for the most part. Taako’s face, however, was the same as the day he’d dropped the illusion after saving Kravitz’s life, and as well as he hid it most of the time, it was quite a loss to him.

Taako sighed, facing away once more. “You know what I’d choose.”

“I do.”

Silence fell upon the couple again, and the only sounds were that of the food cooking on the stove. After a few minutes, Taako turned and sat across from Kravitz, handing him a spoon, with the words “Try this.” Kravitz did as he was told, and offered a smile and a nod, and Taako smiled sadly in response. 

He had promised Lucretia he wouldn’t tell anyone of her plan, and he intended to keep that promise, just in case things didn’t work out. But this, that look on the face of the love of his life, it tipped the scales on whatever convincing he needed to ensure he put his all into this request. Everyone else who had lost something in Wonderland had this same look sometimes, he knew, thinking about what they would never get back. It sent a pang of sympathetic sadness through his chest, but seeing the expression on the elf before him hurt the most.

_ Whatever it takes _ , he told himself.  _ Whatever it takes _ .

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

Lucretia fell to her knees when she got the knews. She was surprised that when she heard, she didn’t think of herself first (as much as it would be nice to say  _ of course I would think of others first _ ). She thought of everyone who had lost abilities, money, important belongings, parts of themselves, memories of loved ones, more years than she had. Her heart swelled at the thought that these people would get back these missing parts of their lives that her  _ friends _ would get back what they lost, and her heart faltered at the parallel of this to what she had done, what else they had lost because of her.

Was it her destiny to restore things that had been taken, even if not by her own hand? She wondered this in the dark, by herself, later that night.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

In the end, Taako and Merle had managed to convince Magnus that he didn’t want back what he had lost that was not returned to him with his new body. He was well and truly better off without it. He seemed more free, less harsh in ways they’d barely noticed until he had lost the memory and changed. He took some convincing, but in the end, trusted in his friends.

Merle asked for his missing eye back, after repeatedly trying to get back his lost arm, to the frustration of everyone present. It didn’t work that way, and he was told so as many times as he asked. He didn’t lose it to Edward and Lydia in Wonderland, and he couldn’t have it back as a part of the deal to restore what was lost there. In the end, he seemed satisfied with having his missing eye returned, if his lack of complaining was anything to go by. He said having his depth perception restored would be useful, even if he was still without his low-light vision.

After returning to his own home, Taako had stared into the mirror for a shockingly short amount of time, Kravitz thought. He didn’t consider the elf to be especially vain, but he did pride himself on his appearance, whether it be his face or otherwise.

“It’s the same old face, not to be ungrateful,” Taako quickly amended, putting his hands up in defense as he laid facing Kravitz in the near-darkness. “I just mean, like, I had it for over two hundred years, man, it’s not really  _ new _ . Getting something back is different than getting something you’ve never had before.”

“I understand, don’t worry,” Kravitz said with a low laugh, pulling Taako closer and resting a warm hand on his cheek, thumb moving slow over the smooth skin spattered with freckles, and they simply stared at each other with matching soft smiles for a few moments.

“I wonder what sorts of things other people asked to have back,” the reaper spoke his thought aloud. He had known the deaths of those in Wonderland, but nothing of those who narrowly escaped it.

“We didn’t spend as long in there as a lot of other people did, I guess,” the elf replied, eyes roaming the ceiling, “But I assume it was similar stuff. You know they asked Merle to give up the memory of his kids being born, and he said  _ no _ to that shit? And he’d still remember the rest of their lives! I don’t get it. That guy is stupid as hell.”

“Different things are important to different people,” Kravitz replied, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, and Taako rolled his eyes.

“Obviously. I bet those shitty liches loved that, when people said no to  _ dumb _ stuff. Although, I gotta admit, I am thankful Magnus refused to lose a fight. He basically just prevents me from dying, so,” he broke off with a shrug, and Kravitz laughed. “And if I died, I wouldn’t have gotten this beautiful face back,” he said theatrically, rubbing his hands over his own cheeks, and Kravitz laughed again.

“And we wouldn’t be here, right now,” Kravitz said, and Taako gave him a mildly perturbed look.

“Don’t get all mushy on me,” he said, but didn’t make any effort of resistance when Kravitz pulled him in for a kiss. In fact, he seemed quite eager, and Kravitz was contented to give him what he wanted.

The elf broke off after a moment, propping himself up on one elbow. “So tell me,” he asked, and Kravitz raised one eyebrow, wrapping an arm around his waist. “How does it feel to date an eleven?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?” Kravitz responded, in a moment of biting wit, which earned him a shocked look and a light shove from Taako, and he laughed again. The laughter faded into silence, and Taako dropped back down to the mattress, eyes cast skyward. 

“I think I would have gotten used to it, eventually,” he said, in reference to their earlier topic, “but I only had to deal with that face for two years, compared to two hundred with this one, like I said,” he gestured to his face. “It was like… I don’t know how to explain it. Looking in the mirror and not being able to recognize the face you see is… hard.”

Kravitz mulled that over in his mind for a second, and Taako watched him expectantly. He could tell the reaper had a question, but possibly didn’t quite know how to ask. Taako was a patient man, and had learned that he needed to be so at times with Kravitz. He always thoroughly thought through the things he said, and preferred not to be rushed. Living on a timeless schedule would do that to someone.

“Obviously I have no idea about this, so… forgive me if I’m being offensively incorrect, but… Is that the same feeling as… um…”

“No,” Taako cut him off, knowing what he meant. “Not- I mean, similar, in some ways, I guess? It’s not… With the face, it was less of looking in the mirror and thinking ‘this isn’t how it’s supposed to be’, it’s more like… just not even recognizing yourself. I know it’s not like I got my face burned off with acid or anything, so it’s not  _ that _ bad, but it was still just… not me. And in that way, it’s similar,” he said, “I guess. I mean, I wasn’t particularly not-okay with my body before. Not... It wasn’t to the same degree as Lup,” he tried to explain, “for me. There are things I was always okay with, and things I was always not okay with, but they’d always been there, pretty much, and I was kind of used to them. So it’s not like shit suddenly changed and I had to get used to it. I just didn’t want tits,” he said, scowling, and Kravitz nodded, despite the seriousness in Taako’s tone having faded out at the end. “This is like trying to explain what it feels like to cast spells to someone who just has no magical experience. Like, I can talk about it all I want, but…”

“It’s something you can’t really understand unless it happens to you,” he said, and Taako nodded. 

“Precisely.” They lapsed into silence again, and after a moment, Taako inhaled deeply and added, “But your face fucking melts off literally every day, so I expect you to at least get the face thing a  _ little _ ,” he said with a slightly incredulous look, and Kravitz laughed.

“The first decade or so was rough, I will admit.”

“Thank you,” Taako said after a beat, “for putting in as much effort as you did. To get us back the stuff we lost,” he said, and his tone was soft and sincere. “I know it probably wasn’t easy, and it might seem like it wasn’t a huge deal, but it was. I… we all really appreciate it.”

“You have Lucretia to thank for it.”

“I know.” The slight bitterness in the elf’s voice and expression was not lost. “And… I am thankful to her, too. Not ready to forgive her yet, but… grateful.”

“Do you think you ever will be able to forgive her?”

“I will, someday. I… I understand why she did what she did. She just didn’t want to see us all in so much pain. I guess she just didn’t want us to know that all those fuck-ups with the relics were because of us. And… we were friends for a hundred years. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still be mad about her choice.”

“That is true.”

“Damn right it is. Lucky for her, Lup made it back, though, and that’ll make forgiveness a lot fucking easier,” he said, gaze on the ceiling once again, contemplative and hardened, but not as harsh. “Someday.”


End file.
